JD Vance says Washington probing Iran wedding strike, insists US does not target civilians

US Vice President JD Vance has said that Washington is investigating a deadly strike on a wedding in southern Iran while insisting that the US military does not target civilians, after a Reuters analysis found the blast was likely caused by a direct hit from a US munition.

Vance said he had been briefed on the incident and that an investigation was underway, but expressed scepticism about accounts from Iranian state media, saying it had not been a reliable source during the conflict.

“What I can say with 100 per cent confidence is that unlike the IRGC, the United States never targets civilians in combat,” Vance told reporters at the White House. “We never will do that; we never have done that.”

He acknowledged, however, that civilians could be harmed during military operations, saying that “sometimes things happen”. He added that in this case, he did not yet have enough information to determine exactly what had occurred.

“I don’t think that we have information one way or the other,” Vance said.

The strike hit a home during a wedding in Iran’s southern Sirik County on Tuesday, according to Iranian officials. Iranian state television reported that five people had died, including a 22-year-old woman who later succumbed to her injuries in hospital. Officials said nearly 70 people were wounded.

The attack took place along Iran’s Strait of Hormuz coastline, where heavy US airstrikes were reported on Tuesday night. On Thursday, mourners gathered near the village of Kuhestak in Sirik County to pay tribute to those killed. Funeral-goers scattered flower petals during the ceremony. The United States has not accepted responsibility for the incident.

Vance said the investigation was continuing because the US wanted to establish what happened.

“We’re investigating it because obviously we care [and] we want to know,” he said.

He also defended the US military’s approach to incidents in which civilians may be harmed, arguing that the military investigates mistakes and uses them to improve its operations. “This is the big difference between us and Iran: when our military makes mistakes, we learn from them so we can get better from them,” Vance said.

A U.S. official speaking on condition of anonymity said the government is looking at various scenarios related to the casualties at the wedding, including whether they were caused by a U.S. strike, some sort of ricochet of an Iranian air defence missile, or an errant interceptor itself.

Reuters shared video and images of the incident with four military weapons experts who said the damage was consistent with a direct hit, as opposed to secondary damage from a munition ricocheting off a different target.

Three of the experts said the munition was likely a U.S. weapon, rather than an errant Iranian air defence missile. One of the experts said the weapon may have simply missed its objective.

The incident came some six months after a missile destroyed a primary school in an incident that Iranian officials said killed more than 175 children and teachers.

Reuters previously reported that ‌an initial, internal U.S. military investigation showed U.S. forces were likely responsible for that strike. The Pentagon has not publicly released the findings of its probe.

Mourning the victims

At the funeral on Thursday for four victims from the wedding, Iran’s Mehr news agency video showed a pickup truck carrying a flag-draped coffin beneath a canopy of palm fronds.

A reporter in front of the truck said, “This is the body of Martyr Amir-Mohammad Karimi, a 4-year-old child who was martyred in an attack on the country’s south by the criminal American regime.”

In other footage of the funeral, mourners threw petals into the air as doleful music played from a loudspeaker. A casket was carried past a row of soldiers standing at attention with rifles.

“If it was a military location, it wouldn’t be so painful. This was a wedding ceremony, but they turned people’s joy into mourning,” the semi-official Tasnim news agency quoted a local man as saying.

Washington launched the airstrikes on Tuesday, hitting what it said were military targets along the coast in retaliation for Iranian attacks on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.

The sudden escalation of the Iran war has caused a surge in oil prices to levels unseen since July. Prices rose for a fourth straight day on Thursday, taking Brent crude futures LCOc1 over $96 a barrel. O/R

Iran reported 18 dead in the last U.S. assault. It responded on Wednesday to the U.S. strikes with attacks on U.S. bases in Iraq, Jordan, Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain, and carried out further attacks early on Thursday, saying it was targeting another U.S. base, in Kuwait.

Kuwait’s military said its air defences had intercepted missiles and drones.

But following that, the war’s biggest flare-up since July appeared to subside, with no more major attacks from either side reported on Thursday.

The investigation is expected to face scrutiny over the circumstances of the strike and whether the weapon that caused the explosion was part of the US military operation in the area.